Kirikkale
Twelve households in 1925 became Turkey's arms-industry capital: MKEK factories tracing lineage to Ottoman arsenal now produce NATO-standard weapons 80km from Ankara—Turkey's fourth-happiest province.
Kırıkkale exists because Ankara needed an arsenal within reach but outside city limits. In 1925, when the Turkish Republic relocated its capital from Istanbul to Ankara, this village of twelve households sat 80 kilometers east—close enough for supply chains, far enough for safety margins around munitions production. The 1923 Izmir Economic Congress had designated arms manufacturing as a strategic priority; Kırıkkale became the site.
The timeline tells the industrialization story: cartridge factory repurposed for the War of Independence (1921-1925), artillery and ammunition factory (1925), electric machinery plant (1928), steel factory (1931), rifle and gunpowder plants (1936). By 1950, these facilities consolidated into MKEK—the Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation—with its lineage traced to the Ottoman Tophane-i Amire (Royal Arsenal) of the 15th century. Today, five of MKEK's eight major factories cluster here, producing everything from the MPT-76 (Turkey's first domestic infantry rifle, delivered 2017) to ammunition meeting NATO standards.
The village-to-city transformation required separation from Ankara Province entirely. In 1989, Kırıkkale became its own province—administrative recognition that the defense industrial base had outgrown district status. The 2014 Arms Industry Organized Industrial Zone formalized the specialization: 500 decares dedicated exclusively to weapons manufacturing, the first such zone in Turkey.
By 2026, Kırıkkale's trajectory depends on defense export growth. Turkey's arms industry now exports billions annually, and MKEK's 7,000 employees feed supply chains extending to NATO allies and beyond. The province ranked as Turkey's fourth-happiest in 2024—unusual for an industrial town, explained by stable public-sector employment and proximity to capital-city amenities.